


caught up in the middle (of a headache and a heartbreak)

by mooncrystals



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: 5 + 1 times, 5 Things, Alcohol, Angst, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9251291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooncrystals/pseuds/mooncrystals
Summary: She’s on a date, goddammit. Most people don’t usually have personal identity crises concerning their own romantic failures and intimacy issues when they’re on dates.*Or, 5 times Alex Danvers went on a date and wanted it to end and the 1 time she didn't (or rather, she did, but for a completely different reason).





	

**Author's Note:**

> the hiatus is homophobic so here's this
> 
> this is basically alex going on dates w/ men & hating it and wanting it to end and then going on a date(s) w/ maggie and it's perfect but she still wants it to end (so nsfw stuff can happen lmao).
> 
> backstory, kinda angsty?? alcohol warning (nothing worse than what's shown in canon), there's a homophobic slur in there. lots of repression + internalized stuff. some sexual content (but not really?), but nothing too extreme.
> 
> title from "working man" by imagine dragons; no beta - all mistakes are mine.

**one**

Thomas asks Alex out on the 14th of May, less than a month before summer break begins. She doesn't have many plans - the few that she does have mostly involve Kara or Vicki in some way, and she figures that if she says yes to him, her days will be filled with Thomas related outings and dates instead.

The idea doesn't sound too appealing (it's 2 months of break - they'll start slow, of course, but 2 months is a _long_ time, and what will she be expected to do with him before summer ends and they eventually return to school?), but she's turned down a couple of guys before and certain rumors start to follow you around when you're considered hot but don't date or fuck anyone.

She's already heard some of the things girls whisper as she passes them in the hallway, knows that Kara's existence hasn't exactly done her popularity any favors, so she agrees to meet Thomas that Friday night at Cheyenne's Diner.

It was common knowledge that you only went to Cheyenne's if you were a cheap tourist passing through, drunk and in need of something greasy to sober up on, or a high-schooler stopping by with his girl for something quick to eat before driving off to Lookout Point, the perfect prerequisite meal before a couple's first fumble in the shadow of their car. The Lookout was situated just above Swan Beach, where the moonlight glimmer was visible on the waves, qualifying it as the "most romantic" place in Midvale, according to the student body.

Alex had overheard fragments of stories from girls who had been taken there by their boyfriends before; hears about how nervous flirting gave way to first kisses where the ocean roars in the background as his lips touch yours and his hand dances up your skirt. She thinks, if she's being honest, that it's total bullshit and nothing more than her classmates desperately trying to live up to a Hollywood manufactured idea of romance and first loves. Honesty, however, never wins anybody friendship points, so she keeps quiet, smiles when she's sure she's supposed to, and lets her friends live on in a glorified bubble. It's just not for her.

(She wonders if it ever will be).

Thomas isn't too bad when she thinks about it – there were certainly worse guys to date. Occasionally he’d say something funny, and he always seemed to smile at her when they'd make eye-contact in class. He let her borrow his copy of The Tempest that one time she’d forgotten hers, and physically speaking, he was easy enough on the eyes - sandy hair, brown eyes. Nothing special. She tells herself that maybe she doesn’t need special, that maybe there was already enough excitement in her life, and her alien sister should be her main priority. There were none of the butterflies her friends had described to her, but there was _something_ there, although she herself could not say if it was a good or bad something.

The date itself isn't too bad either.

The food (only a side of fries and a chocolate milkshake, because she already feels like she’ll get so nervous that she’ll throw up on him, and she may not know much, but she knows that vomiting on your date usually isn't a turn on for _anybody_ ) is only on the table for about 20 minutes before Thomas starts to fidget with his hands and make eyes at the door.

She takes a final sip before rising from the seat; better to get it over and done with. The quicker it happens, the quicker she can get home and snuggle up in bed with the latest Scientific American article and a cup of tea.

To her surprise, he doesn't remove a hand from the wheel and slide it over to her thigh until they're only moments from the site. She's expecting it a lot earlier, and for a second, she thinks that maybe he won't mind if she protests and they spend the rest of the date just sitting in the dark, taking in the way the city spills into the coast. Maybe they could just talk. Maybe the Lookout won’t be tainted for her.

That thought is immediately shattered when, in one swift move, he turns off the engine, positions his body to his side, and leans in towards her, hands already resting on her knees. They start to sneak upwards, but he pauses - he must notice the clench in her jaw.

"Is this okay?” he murmurs in the dark, and briefly, she considers telling him the truth.

But then she hears the voices of the girls in the school hallways, the words they whisper with such venom - _dyke; freak_.

So she nods, and meets him halfway: leans in, rests her palm against his cheekbone and presses their lips together. He hums into the kiss, and it reminds her of a different girl from school, one she hangs out with, and the way Vicki would sometimes start humming whatever pop song was stuck in her head when they were together. That regardless of how much Alex would hate the song, hearing it on the radio would never fail to bring a smile to her face, because it was Vicki's song and Vicki would hum it to her and therefore, it was also  _their_ song, and nothing was better than having something connect you to another; a physical reminder that you existed together, that you were _something._

The thought sends a bolt of panic through her because she's with Thomas, and she should be focusing on him, not a girl. She thinks she isn't trying enough, that she needs to be better, so she kisses him again, harder this time, and lets him run his hands up and down her back under her shirt until all thoughts of Vicki are gone from her mind.

It doesn't work, and later, when they've taken a break from kissing, she checks her phone for the time and sees a text from the girl in question ( _hope the date’s going well - i want_ _every single detail!!!)._ Alex flushes red, tells Thomas it's from him, and just wants to _go home._

(Although if home meant Eliza and Kara and Jeremiah rather than Vicki, she wouldn't know).

 

**two**

The second time she desperately wants a date to end, it isn’t even hers.

It’s Vicki’s.

She puts the rising nausea she begins to feel down as only disappointment that she and Vicki hadn't gotten to spend the entire weekend together, alone, like they'd originally planned to.

(Or maybe Alex had been the only one to plan things.

Maybe Alex had always been a little _too_ involved.)

Her stomach roils as she sees Vicki and-and _Clint_ fumble over each other on the other side of the diner’s eating area. Vicki giggles as she slides a hand over Clint’s chest, smoothing out the creases in his training jersey, because _of course he’s a quarterback,_ and _of course Vicki’s dating the star of the football team_.

Vicki had confided in her about her crush on Clint countless times, and it wasn’t that Alex thought Vicki wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or cool enough for him (she really, _really_ didn’t think that), it was just that there was a massive difference between hearing your best friend gush and rave about a guy and then actually witness her lay herself all over him.

It hurts her in a way she can’t comprehend, _doesn’t want_ to comprehend, so she waits until Vicki untangles herself from Clint’s arms and turns around enough that their eyes meet and Alex can wave them over to the table she’d reserved the night before.

Of course, because she’d thought that it was just going to be her and Vicki, the table area is only really meant for two – meaning that in Clint’s mind, the quickest solution to the lack of seating is for someone to sit on someone else’s lap. Personally, Alex thinks she could’ve just grabbed another chair, but the words die on her lips as she watches Clint pull Vicki in by her waist, planting her on his knees. She laughs, leaning down to tuck her face into the crook of his neck and kiss his cheek.

It’s like someone’s reached into her body and squeezed her heart into their fist, because her vision becomes blurry and her chest feels too tight and too warm, and everything is just _too much_ and she doesn’t understand.

Doesn’t understand why seeing Vicki with another boy causes her stomach to turn.

Doesn’t understand why she wants to slap Clint’s hands away from where they rest on Vicki’s hips.

Doesn’t understand why she wishes Vicki had chosen to sit on her lap instead, like she’d done countless other times before.

Doesn’t understand why she must feel like this when it’s clear nobody else does.

Vicki must notice the silence, because she looks up from Clint’s shoulder and shoots Alex a confused look.

Alex hates herself for smiling, because she _isn’t_ happy and she doesn’t want to smile but she finds that she does whenever Vicki so much as glances at her.

Vicki takes her smile as a good sign because she grins back and Alex feels her heart drop again.

She’s always thought Vicki’s smile was dazzling but now, in the dim lighting of Cheyenne’s, where the neon signs illuminate the stars in her eyes, Alex has never seen her look more beautiful.

It’s like everybody melts away – Clint, the other diners, the staff – and it’s just the two of them, locked in this dizzying space together.

Or at least that’s what Alex feels.

It becomes clear that she’s the only one when Vicki turns back to Clint, breaking the bubble, and burrows into his chest again.

She didn’t think it was possible for her heart to sink any further into her ribs, but apparently it is, and she wants to throw up.

“I’m gonna go get us some drinks,” she mumbles, unsure if the couple hear her because she’s already turning away from the table and scurrying off.

(She thinks it wouldn’t matter even if they did. She walks faster).

She passes the counter though, and heads straight for the bathroom. Goes into the first free cubicle she sees, locks the door, and _cries._

Vicki's always been who she turns to when something goes wrong, when something upsets her. Kara's possibly the sweetest thing in existence, and her mom, when not demanding the world of her, can dish out some pretty good advice. Her dad's hugs and warm smiles never fail to make her feel safe, but it's Vicki that she goes to when she needs to be grounded, when she needs to feel at _home._

(When she leaves the stall 25 minutes later, Vicki looks up at her like she didn't notice she even left in the first place.  


Alex thinks she's just become homeless.)

 

**three**

College is a lot different from what she expected, and yet, some things remain the same.

The classes are different. The work isn’t necessarily harder than what she had in high-school, but it’s a lot more content heavy and the topics are broader. People in her classes – they _want_ to be there, want to do well, for one reason or another. She isn’t the smartest student, doesn’t have the perfect marks she knows her mother wants, but she knows that she could, knows that she will. She strikes up a friendship with a professor or two, and becomes friendly with Nicole, a girl who always shoots her a smile when she enters the lecture hall, leaving a warm feeling spreading throughout Alex’s chest.

They start to hang out tentatively, because Alex can count the number of people who fit into the friend category on one hand, and Nicole, for all her warm smiles and welcoming looks, doesn’t seem that popular either.

She’s popular enough, however, to know a few people who know a few people who know _many_ people, and after a few quiet study sessions and text message conversations, Alex finds herself somehow being enveloped into this new group, introduced to Nicole’s friends as “my friend”, and it’s…surreal.

The group’s large and pretty fluid – every time they hang out in someone’s dorm or get together for a group study thing, there’s a handful of new people there. The next time they hang out, most of those people are gone, only to re-appear 3 hang outs later. Everybody seems to know everybody, and although she’s sure people don’t know much about her apart from her name and classes and that she’s Nicole’s friend, it’s the closest thing she’s had to _belonging_ in a while.

That belonging feeling shatters when she gets back to her room after their first big get together, where someone claps her on the back and offers her a stick of gum and another engages her in a half hour discussion regarding some Icelandic professor’s recent theory of microbial biodegradation.

She doesn’t catch the Icelandic discussion guy’s name until another guy comes along, ruffles Iceland’s hair and says, “C’mon Dennis! You’ve been chatting her ear off with this for an hour! Don’t wanna scare the lady off, do we?”

Iceland (or Dennis, apparently) rolls his eyes and gets up to leave. Mystery Man slides into his chair and watches him go, before turning back to Alex and winking.

She feels like she’s under a microscope even though his eyes never once travel lower than her face and he doesn’t make a move to get closer to her. He doesn’t do anything wrong and he certainly doesn’t violate her space, and yet, she feels strangely uncomfortable. Her chest tightens and she’s preparing for the worst (although what the _worst_ is, she doesn’t know), but he’s looking at her like he’s waiting for her to begin the conversation, so she says:

“I don’t scare easily.”

It comes out harsher than she intends it to be, but from the grin plastered on his face, she thinks he takes it as a challenge, takes it as flirting.

“Didn’t think you do,” he replies, before sticking out his hand. “Name’s Isaac. I don’t really think the science talk is bullshit though. Just didn’t want him stealing you away and me missing my chance. It’s not often someone like yourself rocks up here. You wouldn’t possibly want to get out of here, would you?”

“Alex,” she says, after returning his handshake. There’s an edge of steel to her voice, and she doesn’t want to offend Isaac, but offering him her name is bad enough -- leaving the party with him is the last thing she wants. He knows her now, and she’s practically given him the key to unlock the door and invited him in to get comfortable.

Instantly, she’s frustrated, because she doesn’t understand why she can’t just enjoy some harmless flirting with some cute guy, one that doesn’t seem like an asshole or only interested in sex.

Or why her stomach fills with dread and thoughts about bad outcomes, instead of future dates, hand holding, and heated kisses leading to more.

She huffs, and he notices. Immediately, he leans back, putting space between them.

She opens her mouth to explain, to apologize and try and fix this thing she’s ruined before it’s even begun. She can’t seem to string together the words she wants to say, however, and ends up choking on half-truths and flimsy excuses.

Tentatively, he reaches forward and places a hand on her knee.

“Hey, we don’t have to go anywhere if you’re not comfortable. Or if you don’t want to. Feel free to tell me to fuck off.”

He ends his sentence with a laugh, before standing up and fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket. Once he’s satisfied (and after a considerable amount of time), he smiles at her a final time before turning to leave.

The sight of him actually going – something she was sure she wanted less than 10 minutes ago – sets something off in her mind, and she quickly reaches out to grab his wrist.

He pauses, and when he quirks an eyebrow, she can’t seem to stop the words from flowing.

“No! No, it’s fine. I’m fine. Sorry, just a little lost in thought.” She waves her hands around for emphasis, before standing from her seat too and motioning with her chin towards the door.

“You sure?” he asks, concern lacing his voice.

Instead of answering, she tugs him across the room, dodging laughing groups of people, and pulls him out of the room and into the Autumn chill.

“Absolutely,” she says, and as if to prove a point (although to who, she could not say), she leans up and kisses his cheek.

He grins, and spends the next 3 hours with that smile still on his face, never leaving for a second.

She fills the next 3 hours trying to recreate the emotion he must be feeling as they drink hot chocolate at the campus café and walk through the freshly-mowed park, hand in hand.

By the time she gets back to her dorm room, the weight of pretending hits her, comes down on her shoulders hard and solidifies heavy in her stomach.

She wants it to end, although what “it” was, she doesn’t know.

 

**four**

There’s certainly… _flings_ between Isaac and now, but she doesn’t know if she should necessarily count them.

Not that she’s exactly counting.

If anything, she’s been trying to do the opposite of remember.

There isn’t anything exactly memorable or exciting about thinking of the many drunken hook-ups one has had in their life-time.

If they had been _good_ drunken hook-ups, it might’ve been different.

Blurry recollections, however, tell a very different story.

One involves a frat party she’s probably too old for, where a barely legal boy in a red snap-back takes her against the door of an upstairs bathroom. Her ear is pressed to the wood of the door and she can _feel_ the electronic music that’s being blasted downstairs as it reverberates throughout the house, pulsing through the door and thrumming under her skin and in her veins. She focuses on that, the constant tattoo of the song’s beat whilst his hands roam across her stomach and grab at her hips.

She doesn’t get off, stumbling out of the bathroom as soon as the boy’s breath in her ear calms and his hands release their grip on her body.

She’s already drunk, but she makes sure to grab another bottle of something from a partygoer as she leaves the over-crowded building.

Another involves the brick wall of a seedy bar’s alleyway, where his hipbones are too sharp and his stubble too scratchy, but she lets his hand creep into her underwear anyways as he nips at her neck. She presses her nose into the shoulder of his leather jacket, breathes in, and forces herself to clear her mind – there’s nothing to distract her from the movement of his fingers, but a boring and blank slate is better than the automatic alternative her mind turns to in these moments.

(She _won’t_ think about that).

She’s glad those memories only appear through a fuzzy lens when she does think of them, because it makes her relationship with Rami all the more sweeter (and then all the more sadder when that doesn’t work out either).

Rami is exactly the type of guy her high-school self would picture her older-self one day falling for.

The thing with Thomas hadn’t worked out, and neither had the handful of other guys she’d gone on dates with, made out with under the bleachers or held hands with in the school corridors.

After countless breakups and moments where she thinks she’s supposed to be sadder than she actually is, she puts it down to a few reasons: high-school relationships never work out, Midvale boys were immature, and college (and life after college) would be when she’d finally be able to experience a good date, a good relationship.

Isaac fails her and the drunken hook-ups are not things to be remembered, but she thinks Rami is.

He’s a few inches taller than her, with brown skin and thick-rimmed glasses. He wears sweaters more often than not, even in ridiculously hot weather, loves coffee in the morning and whiskey at night, and Alex thinks that maybe there might be a universe out there where she could be truly happy with him, content with a life spent together.

(It’s not this one, she realizes, 3 months into _whatever_ it is they are.

Because that’s the thing – he’s relaxed and calm and lets her take control, lets it go at her pace and leaves it to her to define them.

And it would be so, _so_ easy to love him).

They’re on a date, this time at a restaurant. It’s been a while since she’s been taken out like this, with her in a backless dress and him in a jet-black tie.

It’s nice – he makes her laugh and they taste each other’s meals and his hand is warm in hers when he entwines their fingers together over the table, and yet, something is still missing.

It’s frustrating because this should be what she wants, what she needs, and she knows dozens of girls who would happily take her place and wouldn’t be able to find the fault that she does.

It’s upsetting, too, because Rami hasn’t done anything wrong and she’s not sure if she has either, but it feels like she has, and _fuck_ , she just wants something to go right, something to _feel_ right.

He gets up to go use the bathroom, but slides a hand onto her shoulder before he goes and squeezes, just once, and she finds herself tensing. She doesn’t usually – usually she relaxes into his touch (or at least un-tenses), but not this time and he notices. He frowns, but leaves to the other side of the room without a word, and as soon as he’s out of eyesight, she lets her head fall into her palms and doesn’t even attempt to stop the tears from falling.

She wants to go _home._

(Except this time, she doesn’t have Vicki and she’s not sure if she has her mother or her sister anymore, definitely doesn’t have her dad, and doesn’t know where to go).

 

**five**

Maxwell Lord is 5ft of slimy confidence and arrogant charm, wrapped up in a too-tight suit and enough money to buy 3 houses for every homeless person residing in National City, except he won’t because he’s selfish and egotistical and narcissistic, and Alex hates that, hates that he’s intelligent and could use his brilliance for something beneficial but never will. And he hates Kara, hates her kind and hates her despite her never-ending good nature, ability to dish out second chances, even when people aren’t always deserving of them, and her sunshine-filled smiles and --

Alex _hates_ him.

Hates what he stands for, what he is and what he isn’t and mourns who he could have been.

And yet, she still finds herself sitting across from him, wine glass in hand and expensive dinner laid out before her.

It’s everything she _should_ want, everything most girls dream of, everything she’s hoped she’d eventually grow into desiring.

Something sharp twists in her stomach when his hand brushes against hers as he passes her a fork, and for the briefest of seconds, she knows it’s not just because he’s Maxwell Lord, National City’s resident douchebag and womanizer extraordinaire. It’s something else, something foreign and familiar all at once and she doesn’t have the time to even entertain what it could possibly be for a second, let alone truly sit down and think and analyze what it could mean for her. She’s on a date, goddammit; a date to distract Lord whilst J’onn investigates his labs and she attempts to ply information from Max regarding the break-in, sure, but a date nonetheless. Most people don’t usually have personal identity crises concerning their own romantic failures and intimacy issues when they’re on dates.

(The feeling in her gut flashes again when she thinks of why she was chosen for this specific outing. Maxwell’s feelings for her are not unbeknownst to her, and she cringes as she thinks about what _he_ might be thinking as they eat – his hands, gliding across her back, skimming up and down her thighs as his lips ghost the skin of her neck --).

He must notice the look of distaste on her face, because he pauses, fork mid-way to his mouth, and shoots her a wolfish grin.

“You alright there, Alexandra? This isn't getting...too much for you, is it?"

The use of her full name wins him no favors, but she forces a smile and continues with the banter. Twirls with the stem of the glass, swallows down the edible parts of the meal he's provided. It's way too fancy for a fake date, but she nods along anyways and tries not to allow her mind to wander too much, to meet his comments with bite too often.

It's what she's supposed to do, and she’s spent so long playing the perfect daughter that she doesn’t know how to break away from that.

She leaves his apartment after two glasses, when the conversation starts to thin out and she can't see a way to pry more information from him that doesn't involve taking him to bed. She grimaces; whatever possible other information he has to offer anyway wouldn't be worth the shame and disgust she’d experience in the morning when she'd sneak out, heels in hand and hair an unruly mess.

When she’d arrived home from awkward and unsuccessful dates when she was younger, she’d comfort herself with a tub of ice-cream, a sister session with Kara (involving lots of hugs and thinly-veiled threats and possibly, maybe a few tears – although who they were from and if it even happened at all can neither be confirmed nor denied) and the thought of what a date should be, what she’d get someday.

When she gets back to her place after her night at Maxwell’s (after she’s checked in with the DEO, run a few lab tests she should’ve done earlier, signed off on a report and even given her desk area a mini Spring cleaning – anything to avoid _thinking_ ), she instead finds comfort in a bottle of whiskey, one of her sister’s pillows left over from a recent movie night, and the thought that maybe, _maybe_ , one day she’d figure it out.

Her apartment has never particularly resembled home to her, but in the darkness of her living room, with half a bottle of alcohol in her hand and her knees drawn to her chest, she feels more alone than ever.

She gets drunk and dreams of nothing.

 

**\+ one**

Maggie Sawyer bursts into Alex’s life like she was always there – like they knew each other in a different universe, in a different life, and when they meet, something clicks.

Like, “oh, hello – it’s you!”

Except it’s not nearly as pleasant, a little less _hello_ and a little more _hey what the hell do you think you're doing in my crime scene?_

She can admit that they don’t have the smoothest start, but then there’s _wanna see a dead body?_ and _wear something nice_ and the beginning of what Maggie likes to lovingly refer to as “the greatest Gay Panic in the history of the world”.

The Real Gay Panic doesn’t begin until _I didn’t know you were into girls,_ and what follows feels like a long-time coming.

She lays awake when she should be asleep, completely still and silent in bed, reviewing every dating related memory she has.

It feels so obvious, and she doesn’t understand how she didn’t come to this conclusion earlier. It’s not like she didn’t know gay people existed, or never saw gay couples when she was younger.

She’d never felt much of a connection to them, but she supposes she also never felt a connection to the girls in her class who would spend their time babbling about cute boys rather than working.

It’s terrifying because there’s Kara and Eliza and J’onn; there’s labels and identities and stereotypes and expectations and she’s still so confused, sure this heavy feeling in her stomach might take a while to dissipate and –

And there’s also Maggie; Maggie’s eyes and Maggie’s voice and Maggie’s smile - the smile she has that she seemingly only reserves for when she’s around Alex. The way her fingers burned Alex’s skin through her jacket when Maggie had grabbed her arm at the alien bar. The way she pokes her tongue out in concentration, regardless of whether she’s focusing on a case file or her next pool shot (a likely terrible pool shot, Alex thinks, and finds herself laughing and feeling lighter already).

The weight of all of this doesn’t leave – it still sits tightly in her chest and curls around her ribs, but she allows herself, for just one night, to push aside the feeling and let herself indulge.

She thinks of Vicki, and all the times they’d touched in high-school – fingers entwined as they walked to class together, shoulders brushing when watching a movie, arms linked as they stumbled back from parties, avoiding the midnight shadow.

She thinks of Nicole – she’s woman enough to admit that she’d felt something with Vicki, but she knows there wasn’t anything with Nicole. Still, she recalls one particular moment of their friendship, when they’d crashed in the same bed following finals, wrapped around each other. As soon as they’d left the exam hall, exhaustion had hit like a freight train, and they’d fallen asleep together immediately after returning to their dorm room. It was strictly platonic, but Alex quickly remembers the ease she’s always felt around women, the ease to which she’d allowed herself to be vulnerable around Nicole and other college girls.

She hasn’t had many female friends since college – between Kara and the DEO, her social life has been put on permanent hold, but she lets her mind wander to the few women she could probably label as her acquaintances; Lucy and Vasquez. It feels violating to think of them like _that_ , so she instead pictures other DEO agents; women with ponytails and thigh holsters, clad in all black, passing out guns and clapping her on the back after successful missions. She feels giddy almost, but the image of weapons and uniforms reminds her of Maggie, and her heart begins to beat wildly.

She feels a little guilty again, but then she remembers Maggie’s smile from across the bar table, all soft and warm, and she revels in it.

She falls asleep, Maggie still burning in her brain, and when she wakes to her alarm blaring the next morning, she feels good about things. Less alone, less isolated.

It’s not complete safety, and it definitely isn’t home, far from it, but she has Maggie and things will be okay.

And, well –

Things become decidedly un-okay shortly after, but she never truly gets the whole “it has to hit rock-bottom before it can better” until Maggie Sawyer arrives on the scene (literally).

Because there’s _I’m here for you but as a friend_ and _you don’t want me_ but then there’s _I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it_ and _we should kiss the girls we wanna kiss_ , and then there’s _actually_ kissing Maggie, this time with both of them on the same page and –

It’s perfect.

It’s real.

But it is nowhere near as good as the kisses Maggie peppers Alex with when they’re on one of their dates, and _god, the dates._

There’s the dinner date, because Alex isn’t sure if she hated her previous dates at fancy restaurants because they were dinner dates, or if it was because she was with men, and Maggie wants to give her the chance to find out. It’s the new Italian place, because pasta and pizza is something they can both agree on, but they don’t get to see if this place is worth coming back to because Alex gets a text as they’re going over the wine menu. A matching buzz from Maggie’s phone tells them it isn’t just a random message or a Facebook notification.

They make up for it by ordering in later that night, collapsing on the couch together, under the blankets, sharing pizza slices and stories and scars.

The one at the annual fair National City throws, where Maggie spends almost all her money on some carnival game, trying to win Alex a stuffed zebra toy. It isn’t all that hard, but Alex certainly doesn’t make it easy when she wraps her arms around Maggie’s waist from behind, tucking her face into her neck. They hold hands as they walk through the bustle, and when the sky turns as pink as the cotton-candy Alex holds, Maggie kisses her. She tastes like sugar and summer and the hint of something else, and Alex tries very hard not to fall in love.

The bowling date, after Alex makes a comment like “surely there’s _one_ game you’re good at”, following another one of Maggie’s woeful attempts at sinking a billiard ball. Maggie huffs and waves the block of cue chalk menacingly in Alex’s face, throwing around words like “bowling” “obliterate” and “regret”.

(3 days later and Alex finds out that bowling _isn’t_ the one game Maggie’s good at. The woman in question grumbles as they make their way back to the bar – _their_ bar – for a round of what Alex calls “celebratory drinks”. Maggie doesn’t stop her muttering until Alex shuts her up with a very public kiss. The whole bar cheers and M’gann smirks into the rim of a glass.)

The shooting range date, which didn’t begin as a date, but Maggie got handsy _and_ hungry, so it ends up being one.

The aquarium date. The ice-cream parlor date. The one at the museum.

(The _two_ at the museum because Alex spends too much time in the science section, and they have to come back a second time to actually see everything. Maggie doesn’t mind. Museums aren’t really her thing, but Alex talking passionately with her hands and looking at the displays with stars in her eyes is definitely Maggie’s thing.)

And then the one they’re on currently – a movie.

Alex has never really been a fan of movie dates; the whole point of a date is to get to know someone a little better, to actually spend time with them, and all movie dates accomplish is the discovery that your partner has a terrible/fantastic taste in cinema. ( _It also leads to awkward thigh groping_ _in the dark_ , she thinks, recalling her sophomore year date with Jarred).

But she also wasn’t really a fan of any type of date before Maggie, and since the woman in question has certainly transformed her opinion on them, she finds herself in the back-row of a movie theatre, popcorn bucket and over-priced soda in hand (She had insisted that if they were really going to do this, they at least had to go all the way and be _authentic,_ prices be damned).

The movie was Maggie’s choice – some superhero action flick, and Alex almost rolls her eyes when Maggie passes her a ticket. Maggie just laughs and tugs her towards the last row of seating, defending her choice with a “just because I get to experience the real thing doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy Hollywood’s version too”.

Superhero movies lost their appeal to Alex a month after Kara arrived in her life, when her friends were spending their weekends watching them whilst she was coaxing her alien sister out from under the kitchen table, reassuring her that _no, the popcorn maker was not a real threat_ and _yes, it was okay to come out, it’s stopped._

But Maggie likes superhero movies and Alex likes ( _loves)_ Maggie, so she sits down with a sigh. Maggie grins, leaning over to grab a handful of popcorn from Alex’s lap, and Alex swats her hands away.

“You’ve got your own!”

“Yeah, but _yours_ tastes better. You want me to arrest you for assaulting an officer? Hand over the popcorn.”

“Assault?” Alex scoffs. “I barely touched you.”

“Exactly. And that’s a problem. But we can fix that.” Maggie smirks again, bringing Alex’s hand to her mouth and kissing her knuckles. Alex feels her stomach swoop and her cheeks turn pink; Maggie notices and laughs and Alex pulls back, grumbling.

Thankfully, the previews stop and the theatre lights dim, and the movie finally begins. And, well, it isn’t exactly as bad as Alex thought it would be. There’s a few scenes where the science behind the caped heroes is discussed and she rolls her eyes at the inaccuracies (that’s the worst thing about the DEO – she could make the greatest scientific discovery of the century but would never be able to claim credit for it or bring it to light. She thinks she might be able to get away with a letter to the movie’s writing staff full of corrections though.)

She tries to enjoy it and sure, maybe she laughs a few times, but any hope she has with following along with the plot is lost when Maggie leans into her.

It’s only a subtle shift – Maggie moves their empty popcorn buckets and drinks to the seat next to her, and then slowly lowers and turns herself until her head is resting firmly against Alex’s right shoulder. She fumbles for Alex’s hand in the dark and immediately entwines their fingers together upon finding it, and it’s only hand-holding, the simplest form of intimacy and romance, but Alex still feels her heart begin to beat in an erratic rhythm. She tries to calm herself down, somehow manage to lower her heartbeat whilst there’s a beautiful woman lying on her chest, but it’s hopeless. Alex lets it happen, lets herself _fall._

It becomes even more of a hopeless case when Maggie shifts again, this time moving her hand – still holding onto Alex’s – into the space between them, and then eventually onto Alex’s knee. She doesn’t track their hands upwards or rub her leg or anything. She just rests their hands there, and Alex wants so badly for this to work out, to be able to have Maggie like this forever.

She thinks she’d do anything for that to happen.

She _knows_ she’d do anything for that to happen.

Maggie smirks when she feels Alex squeeze her hand, and taking it as confirmation to continue, she turns her head and leans up to ghost her lips across Alex’s collarbones, where they peek out from the edge of her shirt.

Alex breathes in sharply, her grip on Maggie’s hand tightening. Maggie mouths clumsily at Alex’s neck, and when her teeth gently scrape across her skin, Alex audibly gasps and lets go of Maggie’s hand.

Maggie pulls back, a glint in her eye and her hair adorably mussed, grinning at Alex’s attempts to cover her flushed face. Someone a few rows down turns around to shoot them a look, and Alex sinks further into her seat in response, her cheeks on fire.

Maggie bites her lip to stifle a laugh and Alex glares at her, turning to face the screen and pointedly _not_ look at her girlfriend. ( _Girlfriend._ The word still brings a smile to her lips, sends her heart into a frenzy.)

Maggie presses a final kiss to Alex’s cheek after there’s a muttered “just watch the movie, Sawyer”, and eventually they settle back into the film.

Or at least Maggie does, because Alex absolutely cannot concentrate on a single thing except for the way Maggie’s lips felt as they dragged against her skin, her hand firmly clasping Alex’s. It reminds her of the other late nights and early mornings, where Maggie whispers praise into her ear as her fingers trace mindless patterns on Alex’s thighs, waits for her to come down from her high.

That thought sends her mind into an overload again and she _tries_. She really does try to figure out the movie’s plot and what’s going on but Maggie’s hand has found hers again and it’s only hand-holding, it’s so simple and innocent but Alex’s thoughts are anything but. And she just wants this stupid movie with its stupid inaccuracies and lack of scientific knowledge to be over already, wants this date to end so something else can start.

She wants _Maggie_ and she wants to go _home_ , although if there was a difference between the two, she really couldn’t say what it was.

She really doesn’t care if there is.

*

They leave the cinema early, even though there’s only about 15 minutes of the movie left. Maggie complains, grumbling about how she won’t get to witness the ending. Alex tells her to look it up online, to which Maggie counters with a comment about the post-credits scene, and how there’s always one in a superhero film. Alex tells her to look that up later too, and Maggie goes to give her a playful push in retaliation, but Alex draws her in by the wrists and kisses her, slow but not without heat. Maggie crumbles against her, and when they part, Alex finds herself breathless.

“No more talking about the movie,” she mumbles against Maggie’s lips, feeling her nod in reply rather than seeing it, and the rest of the ride back to Alex’s apartment is a blur of city lights and tinny rock music playing from the car’s speakers - Maggie taps out the song’s beat on Alex’s knee as she drives with the other hand, and Alex thinks she could learn to love movie dates if they all ended like this.

They park the car and stumble up the stairs – because _of course_ the elevator had broken down earlier in the day – and they almost fall over a few times, but Alex can’t stop laughing like she’s drunk, allowing Maggie to tug her up the steps and into her apartment.

(She has her own set of keys and Alex’s heart flutters as she watches Maggie fish it out of her pockets. It was her idea to gift it to her, 3 months into dating, after one too many incidents occurred where Maggie would be getting off the graveyard shift, exhaustion deep in her bones, and Alex’s place would be the closest. It started as a casual thing, where Alex would wake to find Maggie’s arms wrapped around her body, pulling her closer, about once a week, but it’s now not uncommon for Alex to arrive home to see Maggie sleeping in her bed – or crashed on the couch when she’s too tired to make it to the bedroom – almost nightly.)

Somehow, they get past the door, but there’s a split second where they pause after opening it and Alex thinks that Maggie might drop to her knees and take her against it, but they quickly recover and move through the house. _Next time_ , she thinks.

Maggie practically pushes her once they reach her bedroom, and Alex tumbles into the bed, back hitting the rumpled sheets. She sees Maggie grin down at her before she disappears from view and Alex feels her tug off her shoes. She comes back into Alex’s line of sight a minute later, still smiling like she can’t believe she gets to be with Alex this way, gets to touch her this way, and Alex knows her own expression mirrors Maggie’s.

Maggie wastes no time in shedding her shirt and throwing it across the room, Alex’s own jacket and top joining the pile soon after. She leans down, collapsing on top of Alex and kissing her whilst her hands play with the buckle of Alex’s belt. They don’t stop kissing until Maggie pulls Alex’s jeans down her legs, and when they get caught on her ankles, they break away laughing. It’s messy, and it takes a while for both of them to recover, with Maggie quietly chuckling into the juncture of Alex’s neck. Alex’s hand finds purchase in Maggie’s hair, and deft fingers undo the loose ponytail. Eventually, Maggie manages to untangle her jeans, taking them off before sliding her own off her body. They hit the floor at the same time she crashes into Alex and then there’s more kissing and biting and fingers running over skin equal parts smooth and scarred, and Alex loses track of what exactly happens next.

Later, after they’ve both collapsed on their backs, skin slick with sweat, Maggie turns to Alex. She shifts until she’s on her side, and then leans in close, lips brushing against Alex’s shoulder. She presses lazy kisses up and down her neck until she reaches the spattering of moles that dot across Alex’s chest, and stops. She doesn’t have to say anything.

They fall asleep, legs and hands entwined and Maggie’s lips never leaving Alex’s skin.

And if a cell-phone hadn’t have rung rather loudly near Alex’s ear at 8am the next morning, she’s sure they would’ve kept sleeping until at least the afternoon.

That isn’t the case, and Alex turns in Maggie’s grip to see golden streams of the day’s first light filtering through the window and bathing Maggie’s face in the most angelic way. The woman in question won’t stop looking at her with eternal awe, like _she_ was the Danvers sister to come from the stars, or perhaps, hung the stars by hand herself, and well –

It’s too much for this early in the morning, so she kisses Maggie’s cheek and pushes her towards where her phone is still unfortunately ringing.

Maggie sighs but obliges, rolling out of their sheet cocoon and into a sitting position at the edge of the bed. She sleepily paws at her cell until the ringing stops and is replaced by a gruff voice telling her that they need her back at the station.

“What? It’s my day off…but…yeah. Yeah. _Of course_ I know that. Look, I just…I’m at home right now. Just give me half an hour and I’ll be there. Yeah. Bye.”

Maggie turns to her, face fallen and disappointment shining in her eyes, but Alex can only focus on the words _I’m at home right now_ , and maybe Maggie only said it because it was quicker to say that than to explain that she was actually at her girlfriend’s place, but then Alex sees the look Maggie gives her and she just knows that that isn’t it. That maybe Maggie does think of Alex’s apartment as her home.

That maybe what makes Alex’s apartment her home isn’t the rooms or the furniture or the second toothbrush sitting on Alex’s bathroom sink, but rather Alex herself.

The thought makes her skin heat up, and she distracts herself by kissing Maggie quickly, attempting to ease her own heartbeat and dissipate any of Maggie’s guilt. Maggie pulls back, wonder on her face, and Alex presses a fingertip to her bottom lip, silencing the apologies she knows are bubbling up in Maggie’s throat.

“Go. I know you have to. Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Maggie kisses her fingertip, smiling into Alex’s hand as she hears her words. Her smile fades as she starts to speak.

“But, this is my day off and we went on a date last night and—“

Alex cuts her off with a searing kiss, bites her lip when she feels Maggie pull back. Maggie groans, deepening it, but a buzz from her phone brings her back to the present. She still looks guilty, so Alex shakes her head.

“You think that was our last date or something? We’ll have plenty more. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I mean, as long as there’s minimal superhero movies from now on,” she says, to which Maggie grins. “Just go do your job. Save the city.”

Maggie’s face still bears worry, but Alex shoos her off to the shower. When she returns 5 minutes later, Alex has set out her uniform at the bottom of the bed, and Maggie drops the towel and changes then and there, hair still dripping. Alex whistles from where she’s nestled near the headboard, and Maggie laughs in return. By the time she’s fully dressed in her work clothes, most of the guilt is gone thanks to the jokes Alex peppers their conversation with, the easy smiles she sends Maggie’s way, and Maggie kisses her slowly before she goes, showing Alex her appreciation with her lips and tongue and teeth, similar to the night before.

She turns to leave the apartment, but Alex calls out her name before she ducks out of view completely.

She spins, curious, and leans against the door frame.

“Yes?”

“Come home to me.”

Maggie smiles, dimples on full display and Alex’s heart swoops.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> terrible i know but comments/thoughts/kudos are still much appreciated :))
> 
> tumblr is @chyllerleigh btw
> 
> happy new year to all, hope 2017 doesn't fuck you over too much


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